Notes for Shakespeare's Sonnet 60


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Shakespeare's
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60

4. in sequent toil: toiling one after another in close succession.

5. Nativity, once in the main of light: birth, once it is in full light. —I think Shakespeare conceives of "nativity" as a process extending from conception to healthy infancy. This would be a natural idea, since birth did not assure life. Of the eight children of Shakespeare's parents, only four lived to adulthood.

7. crooked: malignant.

8. confound: ruin.

9. transfix the flourish: pierce through the outward decoration.

10. delves the parallels: digs the trenches.

11. feeds on the rarities of nature's truth: consumes the most precious things true nature produces.

12. nothing stands but for his scythe to mow: i.e., nothing stands upright that will not be mowed down his scythe. —Father Time is usually depicted with the scythe he uses to mow down people and everything else.